TAEGAN GODDARD says that despite official denials, there’s evidence that Gary Hart is planning to run.

UPDATE: Here’s an account of a recent Hart speech.

NON-LUDDITE BIOETHICS: Yale’s Interdisciplinary Bioethics Program is sponsoring a conference on transhumanism for June. What’s that?

Transhumanism is a new approach to bioethics which argues that technology can be used to overcome the limitations of the human body, and that individuals should be allowed to enhance their bodies.

Leon Kass will no doubt be appalled. But, you know, people already “enhance” their bodies all the time — just ask Virginia Postrel about her laserized eyes. Or Carmen Electra about, well, pretty much everything, I think. . . .

SHANTI MANGALA calls the “women are peaceful” argument “sexist, idiotic drivel:”

I think it is mainly a very Western point of view, or at least the view of a person who is wilfully ignoring or trying to gloss over the complexities of a woman’s nature.

I read somewhere the saying, “the most dangerous place in the world is between a mother and her baby”. In Indian culture, women have never shied away from battle and there is absolutely no proof that they were ever more reconciliatory than their male counterparts. Rani Rudrama Devi, Jhansi Lakshmi Bai and others come to mind. Even our mythology is full of women warriors – Kali, Durga, Satyabhama. We also use the term “Mother Nature”, which denotes not just the gentle, loving, calm face of nature, but also the nature that floods, blows away and destroys human life.

There is both a life-giving energy and a destructive force in a woman. I find it very simplistic for people to ignore one thing or the other to further agendas or to make points. I don’t like to call myself a feminist in the “NOW” sense of the word, but the traditional sense of the war-mongering man and a softly nurturing woman is as distateful me as is the effort by people of some religions to subvert womens’ freedoms by deeming too fragile to take care of themselves.

There’s nothing gentle about this post, that’s for sure!

UPDATE: Check out this blog, by an (almost) 26-year-old Muslim woman who’s struggling with a different kind of sexism.

THE PROPOSAL TO REMOVE THE SUNSET PROVISION IN THE “PATRIOT” ACT is getting an unfriendly reception:

Fidel Castro has got to be looking on with admiration. This is his thing.

The problem with protecting freedom by curtailing freedom is that each bright idea suggests another and pretty soon there’s not a lot left to protect.

That’s why Orrin Hatch’s suggestion that the “Patriot Act” be made permanent is so appalling.

Why? What is wrong with having to review the act every few years, determine whether it is still needed and then re-enact it for a few more years?

Hatch apparently does not want those new government police powers to ever be taken away again, whether they are needed or not, and you have to wonder why.

Yes, you do have to wonder. I think that everything in the “Patriot” Act should have been sunsetted, and I certainly don’t think that any sunset provisions should be removed.

Hatch should be ashamed, and so should everyone else involved in this travesty.

IT’S, ER, A BIT LATE, but Joshua Claybourn has been won over to the anti-war cause.

JOSH CHAFETZ, meanwhile, is taking moral responsibility for the war.

STEFAN SHARKANSKY observes that CNN has some standards: it’ll shill for dictators, but not for the United States.

BRENDAN HAS THE PUNCHLINE. And it’s a good one. Please help him find the joke.

MICKEY KAUS calls the ridiculously light sentence given Pim Fortuyn’s killer “Euromoronic:”

The Dutch three-judge panel, according to the NYT, said they were “persuaded that Mr. van der Graaf was not likely to repeat his crime.” But isn’t the relevant question whether someone else very much like Mr. van der Graaf is now likely to repeat his crime? … Among the lessons the twentieth century teaches us, one is surely that assassinations work — maybe not in the long-term (centuries), but in the medium term (decades). You’re not supposed to say this. It’s a bit like admitting that most great popular music is made on drugs. But Oswald, Sirhan, Ray, Amir, van der Graaf — name five other men who have done more to alter the course of history (for better or, in this case, worse) in their lifetimes. You’d think the Dutch judges would recognize this and adjust the punitive calculus accordingly. Instead, they’ve made an offer many ineffectual-yet-earnest activists may find hard to refuse.

The Euros seem to have trouble thinking this way in a number of departments.

MORE CRITICISM OF CNN’S SUCKING-UP to tyrants, this time from Bruce Feirstein. Excerpt:

Having said this, however, what really surprises me is that no one else in journalism has pointed out the bigger lie here:

For over fifteen years, CNN has made a point of broadcasting propaganda in return for access. But in this case, the access isn’t about bureaus, or reporters, but rather, the CNN signal itself.

Since 1987, CNN International has broadcast a weekend show called “World Report,” whose introduction might as well have been written by George Orwell: The announcer boasts that the reports are “uncensored and unedited,” from local television stations (read: government controlled) in nations that allow CNN to broadcast within their borders.

I used to get this program some years ago, and it was appalling. I remember a tour of the Cameroonian Minister of Communications’ mansion getting 15 minutes. At the end I was convinced that he, and CNN, were both utterly corrupt. After reading this report, I’m pretty sure I was right about both. . . .

THIS IS NOT A CLINTON-BASHING POST. This one, by Moxie, on the other hand. . . .

She doesn’t look like a stereotypical Clinton-basher. In fact, I think that Bill would like to be in this picture.

THIS IS NOT AN ASHCROFT-BASHING POST: Well, not really. But I’ve been slowly making my way through Steven Brill’s new book, After, and I ran across this passage the other day, about Ashcroft’s role in the drafting of the USA Patriot Act:

Beyond his predilection to want to control as much as he could, some on his own staff thought that another reason Ashcroft hadn’t “scrubbed” the bill beforehand was that he didn’t appreciate the significance of the prosecutor-written laundry list he was proposing. Although Ashcroft is a graduate of the highly regarded University of Chicago Law School and a former Missouri state attorney general, even some of his own deputies at Justice were surprised by how uninterested he was in the niceties of the law. One veteran staffer recalls that through six different meetings on this bill and another key legal initiative, he had never once heard Ashcroft cite a legal case and had watched him blanch when someone in the room cited a case, as if that person was discourteously speaking another language. Two senators — one a conservative Republican, the other a moderate Democrat — who spoke with Ashcroft at about this time were surprised at his lack of command of the basic issues. Whether it was lack of interest or lack of intellectual firepower, the Attorney General seemed not to appreciat the complexities of the constitutional issues he was dealing with.

This is damning if it’s accurate. (In the “source note” for this section, Brill attributes this to the two unnamed Senators and to a “veteran Justice Department senior lawyer” who is unnamed). It’s possible, of course, that — to be as charitable as possible — Ashcroft was having trouble focusing on legal niceties at a time when more terror attacks seemed imminent. But it’s not as if Ashcroft’s manner has changed with more time for reflection.

I’ve defended Ashcroft when I thought he was right, but I really don’t think he’s the right guy for the job he has. I would feel more comfortable with someone who was more of a real lawyer, and who had more respect for civil liberties. It’s not Ashcroft’s religiosity that bothers me, as it bothers some. It’s his penchant for secrecy, and for bureaucratic power-grabbing — and the Justice Department and FBI’s not very impressive performance, and extremely limited commitment to self-policing, demonstrated both before and after 9/11.

And it doesn’t comfort me that Ashcroft is getting chummy on these issues with Charles Schumer, either.

I’M NOT REALLY BACK, BUT OVER AT GLENNREYNOLDS.COM I’ve got a post on why the war on terror doesn’t seem to be going as well domestically as it is abroad.

UPDATE: Talkleft has some comments on this post. And if you want to hear my appearance on the Bob Rivers Show earlier today, click here. For some reason I wound up talking about Syria a lot, but it went reasonably well, I think.

IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY HERE: I’m not on vacation like some other bloggers I know, but I’m going to enjoy the afternoon. (That’s a dogwood tree in front of the Law School building over to the right).

Back later.

CLAYTON CRAMER NOTES that some members of Congress are weighing in against extending some of the Patriot Act provisions that are scheduled to sunset. He also notes, correctly, that the Bush Administration’s penchant for secrecy on these kinds of things is costing it credibility:

If even the statistics are top secret, how can we, the public, tell whether these provisions are being appropriately used or not?

How, indeed? The Bush Administration has done rather well on the external front. Homeland Security, however, remains a much less impressive operation.

SALAM PAX — REAL OR NOT? Steven Den Beste has questions, and Paul Boutin reflects that we may never have a definitive answer.

I agree with Paul that Salam’s blog didn’t feel like a hoax. But, of course, that can be explained by him being a really good hoax, or by my intuition being wrong, either of which is possible. There are a lot of questions that can’t be answered definitively, and for those we have to either go with our gut (recognizing that we might be wrong) or just accept that they’re unanswered.

I feel fairly confident that Salam’s blog wasn’t a government propaganda outlet for the U.S. or Iraqi governments — or at least, that if it was one it wasn’t a very good one, since it didn’t really produce a lot of points for one side or another. Beyond that, who knows? Unless, of course, Salam turns up.

And even then, it’ll be tricky to know if it’s really him! If I were an Iraqi scam-meister, I might start claiming to be Salam. Heck, we might see several Iraqis claiming to be the real Salam. Stay tuned.

I’M ABOUT TO BE ON THE BOB RIVERS SHOW, 102.5 FM in Seattle. No audio stream, but if you’re in the area you can tune in.

TIRED OF THE WAR AND WAR-BLOGGING? (Heck, I’m getting tired of it! Maybe I’ll take a vacation like Andrew Sullivan, or Bill Quick. Nah, screw that. I want a vacation like Nick Denton’s.)

Anyway, if you want to read about something else, Roger Simon is blogging about the humiliations and exhilirations of having his novel published.

JOSH CHAFETZ HAS AN ARTICLE ON CIVILIAN CASUALTIES and the way in which Marc Herold’s bogus numbers find their way into mainstream media.

INTERESTING ARTICLE IN THE ARAB NEWS:

AT AN AIR BASE IN KUWAIT, 16 April 2003 — People are curious about being embedded in the Marines. This is my effort to set the record straight. Some readers suspect I was subjected to propaganda while living with these men and women. There was no propaganda campaign. If there had been, there would have been no embeds. Journalists wrote their own stories, and made their own interview requests and interviews. The Marines’ “PAOs” (public affairs officers) would set up the meetings, but not oversee them.

What happened to the majority of journalists living the Marine life is that we experienced it from the inside. I can honestly say that seven weeks as an embed has changed me forever. And I have often found many similarities between Marines and Arabs.

Why? Let me give you a few examples, all of which deal with generosity of spirit.

This is an interesting meme — the Marines kicked ass because they’re like Arabs! Thus, in a way, no Arab honor was lost. . . I’m okay on this, I guess. But read the whole thing, because there’s more to it than that.

Then there’s this article from Malaysiakini:

The fact that Syria is the next target of criticism after Iraq proves what most objective academics have said that the war in Iraq was a follow-up of Afghanistan, and in reality an ideological war against terrorism.

The fact is the war is against terrorist symphatisers – people who even harbour thoughts of condoning Sept 11, 2001. The fact is that the US has so far been only tolerant of actions in other countries and against its embassies abroad.

It’s not about oil, it’s not against Muslims. It’s about making states live up to their promise about not tolerating random violent acts no matter what their grievances are.

Stories like these are a good sign, though it’s too early to tell if they reflect a trend.

AUSTIN BAY WRITES ON WHAT VICTORY IS — AND ISN’T — ABOUT:

We’ve won?

If you mean the War on Terror, the answer is, “No, not by a long shot.” Victory in that dark, intricate conflict remains years away. . . .

While the operational victory is extraordinary, strategic victory in the War on Terror requires focused and sustained military, political and economic efforts.

The formula for Hell in the 21st century, the linkage of terrorists, rogue states and Weapons of Mass Destruction, still challenges civilized states. Reforming rogue states, curbing the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and killing terrorists is an involved and intricate process.

It’s a great victory, but there’s still a lot of work to do.

BRIAN SCRIVANI thinks I’m overstating the importance of the Abu Abbas arrest (here’s the post he refers to), noting that:

While this is a great find and I hope that Abbas is rightfully brought to justice, we all know that Abbas is NOT a member of Al Queda- the terrorist connection that the Bush administration was trying to make.

Actually, I think that the Bush Administration was careful to note Saddam’s ties to a wide variety of terrorist groups, not simply Al Qaeda — and, in fact, has been pretty careful not to claim a direct connection between Saddam and the 9/11 attacks. The claim was that Saddam was aiding and abetting a wide variety of terror groups, as a way of waging proxy war against America. That seems to be pretty well established now. And my post never suggested that Abbas was a member of Al Qaeda.

Scrivani also thinks that I’m wrong to suggest that Howell Raines lacks influence — because Martha Burk, despite his zone-flooding support, couldn’t muster a single busload of protesters – but by way of refutation he links to an article saying that the Times is making money. That seems like apples-and-oranges to me. He’s right, of course, that the Times remains an important paper, which is why lots of bloggers link to it. But Raines pretty obviously wants it to be an engine for mobilizing social change. And he made the Augusta National issue a top priority, and the results were dismal. That’s a different bottom line, it seems to me, and one that’s not going as well for the Times.

Note: This post earlier said “Scott Wrightson thinks” at the top — but Wunderkinder is a group blog and Wrightson, though he sent me the email about the link, isn’t the author of the post in question. I didn’t notice, and assumed it was him. My bad.

UPDATE: Interestingly, this story notes that at the time of the Achille Lauro hijacking, Abbas held an Iraqi diplomatic passport.

This is worth mentioning, since I got an email from one guy who said that just because we found a terrorist in Iraq doesn’t prove any Iraqi connection. There was more than that, of course, and this is just the icing on the cake.

(Link via Best of the Web.) Now if it’s a Syrian connection to Al Qaeda that you’re looking for, well, read this story.

HERE’S A NICE PIECE ON BIG-MEDIA BLOGS AND THE WAR by Maureen Ryan in the Chicago Tribune.

One minor correction: It says I “often” get more than 200,000 hits per day. Actually, I’ve only gotten that much traffic a couple of times, way back at the beginning of the war (you know, like three or four weeks ago).

“PEACE” PROTESTERS hurled Molotov cocktails at the EU summit. They’d rather see their own countrymen incinerated than acquiesce in Saddam’s defeat.

No comment necessary.

JOE KATZMAN:

About 19 months ago, Al-Qaeda was ramming airliners into buildings. During the war in Iraq, the best they could manage was ramming pickup trucks into battle tanks.

Discuss.

Well put. And you can see three more indications of Al Qaeda’s defeat here. I just hope that Al Jazeera is covering this. . . .

MORE IRAQ NEWS:

The Marines found 123 prisoners, including five women, barely alive in an underground warren of cells and torture chambers. . . .

Severely emaciated, some had survived by eating the scabs off their sores. All the men had beards down to their waists, said onlookers.

Most looked absolutely dazed when they emerged, said Mr Sadoun Mohamed, 37, who lives in the area.

‘They had not seen sunlight for a long time,’ he said. ‘They kept blinking and covering their faces.’ He said they were taken to the Saddam Hospital for treatment.

Their names were posted on the walls of the Al-Hajabehia Mosque in west Baghdad, as were names of some 40 others known to have been executed or murdered in prison.

Hundreds of anxious locals wait for word of their family, relatives and friends, some of whom were taken away more than 10 years ago.

Yeah, but why weren’t these Marines doing something important, like looking for lost antiquities?